Four Quadrants helped us find the happy medium that worked so that the practice would be profitable for both of us, and stable enough for me to buy it long-term.
Four Quadrants helped us find the happy medium that worked so that the practice would be profitable for both of us, and stable enough for me to buy it long-term.
Molly and her husband Russ visited Four Quadrants recently to talk about their experience and their results of working with and taking the advice of Four Quadrants.
Molly Weiandt was born bright and intelligent. She grew up in a loving, supportive family. And the first person who thought her skills and abilities might be a perfect match for the the dental profession was her own father Mike Robinson, DDS. That was a convenient discovery, because Molly wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps anyway.
While Mike built a successful practice in the shadow of a bustling General Motors plant during its heyday, by the time Molly graduated from dental school, plant output was a fraction of what it used to be, and many of the companies that supplied parts and services had shuttered.
Five years after Molly joined her father in practice, she the volume was still not conducive for a second associate. Mike was in his 50s; would there even be something there when he was ready to retire? It was time for a reinvention! This meant reinvestment. And marketing. And possibly a name change. And new treatment plans. But how do you start? How much debt do you take on? How can you grow and make debt payments at the same time?
Luckily Molly and her father turned to Four Quadrants Advisory. Not only had they planned transitions, but they had pulled off a practice reinvention or two. They followed Four Quadrants advice and a few years ago, Molly bought her father out completely. Now the roles have reversed, and he gets excited about visiting his daughter at work.
Molly and her husband Russ visited Four Quadrants recently to talk about their experience and their 2015- 2016 results.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - It’s a very normal, everyday, general practice. Family oriented — I see everybody across the board. It’s largely restorative, so crowns and bridges are our bread and butter, but I do like to do a lot of surgery. It’s just a very average general practice. I see everybody; I do a little bit of everything.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We were really starting to think about how to think of our kids’ college funds. We were also saving a lot for retirement, but we didn’t know how to do it.
Russ Weiandt - We were really looking for the best way to take care of our family.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We were fortunate enough to meet with Four Quadrants very, very early on in my practice, so we’ve been a long-term client. They met with my dad and I and that’s how we started with them.
Russ Weiandt - I think we noticed right away that we were gonna be really busy. Being able to save money and think about retirement really wasn’t part of our everyday thinking, even though it was important, so we needed advice to figure out what was the best plan to put forth to move on and get to our goals.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We didn’t want to end up, “Oh well, we’re 50, what do we do?”
Dr. Molly Weiandt - Oh, a lot. I’m amazed at how much money we are saving and still living the lifestyle we want to live. You know, so it’s an amazing amount the last ten years.
Russ Weiandt - I’m surprised at how easy it was, and we are doing a lot more than we ever thought we would do. We are more active than I ever thought we would be.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We take four vacations a year, are still meeting our savings goals and are having a lot of fun. On top of that, I’m still not going to have to work the rest of my life.
Russ Weiandt - Our initial thoughts were for saving it was going to be something where we would have
to hold back. Maybe not live the lifestyle that we had dreamed of, but we are doing a lot more than I ever thought we would, and we are way ahead of where I thought we would be. So it makes a big difference when it comes to enjoying your life.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - You know, ten years ago or 12 years ago when we started, there were all these numbers and of course at the time, we had no money and two kids in daycare. Living paycheck to paycheck and up to our eyeballs in student loans after going through school for nine years and I thought “there is no way that they are going to make this happen, but we will try it because the only other way of it working out is prayer.”
And then it does. It just happens, as long as we followed along, which we did, and do what we’re supposed to do. But I think we are both really, exceptionally, happy.
We are not very old, I”m only 38. Russ is 40-ish, but we are just so thrilled at where we are at, at this point in our lives.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - Four Quadrants was pivotal to the entire process. My dad and I, he’s like my original “bestie,” I tell him that all the time. He really is, but where he was at in his practice when I joined, there was not enough business for two doctors at all. So I took a job right out of dental school with the department of corrections, and I worked two days a week to try to supplement my income and take the stress off of us while we were trying to build something.
Well, five years later, I’m still not getting any patients just because when he started his practice it was at the height of the General Motor’s presence in Anderson and he was getting 50 new patients a month. So the two of us, after that five years, thought “where do we go, what do we do?” Marketing the practice is a little taboo for older doctors, but for my generation, it’s “you gotta
play ball or go home.” We just didn’t know how to do it. So Four Quadrants helped move my father out of his comfort zone to allow the practice to evolve for me.
That’s how it would survive and grow. My dad really stepped up to the plate and did some things he was uncomfortable with, so I have to give him a lot of credit. And Four Quadrants didn’t push us farther than we were willing to go. I was always “go, go, go.” My dad was always “wait, let’s think about this,” and Four Quadrants helped us find the happy medium that worked so that the practice would be profitable for both of us, and stable enough for me to buy it long-term.
Russ Weiandt - I think the fact that you had two people in the same family working together, it was good to have a third party to go to because you haven’t established a business relationship together yet. And while you’re close personally, you don’t want to step on the other’s toes. It was essentially for her father and Molly to get on the same page and get both of their thoughts crossed about how they wanted to go forward in the practice. Molly had not been in business before, so it was really helpful to get Four Quadrants’ perspective.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - It was nice for me to see how my dad had run things and then my ideas on things and what I think Four Quadrants helped us do was blend the old with the new. They would tell my dad “we really need to do this,” or they would tell me, “no, that’s not a good idea.” And I think that that kept us honest. My dad and I will never argue, but we will bend to one way or the other, but it was nice to have them outside of the relationship to be able to tell the other “no” or tell us where to go, and this is how we will get there.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - So it was interesting. We definitely had a staff shedding. There were some people from my dad’s practice who were just not on board with some of the changes we were going to make and again, I really have to give my dad 100% of the credit for supporting the changes that I wanted to do.
He was my biggest cheerleader, even if he thought sometimes I needed to hold off. I would not have
been able to make those changes without him. I think also Four Quadrants helped us both see the value of the changes that would be made. So my dad took the initiative to do a lot of practice management stuff and some marketing and setting me up with a good patient base and the ability to provide the technology which I would need. I just bought the practice three years ago. He gave me the building blocks to launch forward.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - The best news is we get to start paying ourselves more (laughs), after 12 years. Four Quadrants said, “It’s finally time to pay you back.”
Russ Weiandt - The fruits of our labor and planning have come to fruition. You can give yourself a pay raise and not feel guilty about it.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - Because we know we are meeting our retirement goals. When they told us how much money we saved this year alone, it was astounding. And I don’t feel strapped. We just do whatever we want to do, and we are still meeting our savings goals.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We’ve been with Four Quadrants so long that we look to them for guidance for everything, so I don’t really know how to answer that. We trust their opinion, and we stick close to what they tell us to do.
For instance, my technology plan has been on the books for a long time. I’ve talked about it for six or seven years that I want to upgrade, that I wanted all of this stuff, and they held me back for a while until it was the right time. If I had been on my own, I would have just bit the bullet and done it without the proper cash flow or production to support it. My technology upgrade for the office was a large project; a complete software conversion, upgrade to digital X-rays, all new computers. They helped me procure the financing for that at rates I would have been unable to get on my own. And them guiding me into what the best time for it was.
Russ Weiandt - We knew it had to be done. We just weren’t sure when to do it. We also had two kids we’re trying to put through college, so we had to manage all those different ideas and implement that. But everything’s worked out well. Four Quadrants has no problem saying “no,” but they have no problem saying “yes” when it’s the right time.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - I know what I would say. There are so many people out there that just blow smoke at you that can’t deliver. And I have to say time and again, over ten years, Four Quadrants has delivered. Everything that they’ve told us is on target if you follow their advice. They make good on everything they say and that’s worth a lot to know there is someone you can go to that you can trust. That’s why we work so that we can take care of our families.
Russ Weiandt - It’s ok to be skeptical. We were when we first heard about Four Quadrants. But you know, they led us on the right path and things are going well.
Dr. Molly Weiandt - We are just like everyday people, and I’m amazed that we are sitting on a nything, really. Now we have a lot of comfort.
